/me joins the technical 1337
true story based on Simon Travaglia's Bastard Operator From Hell at /odds/bofh/
It's a decided thing. My friend and I skip next class to drop down into the pub to take advantage of the "all drinks one price" offer. We're half way through our third pint when this bloke shows up at our table.
"Mind if I take a seat?" he asks as he throws himself into a chair, shaking the table so bad we can hardly save our drinks.
Jutta and I exchange glances as we notice his friends in a near corner starting the bets.
"I'm Derek, and you are…?"
"Martina" answers my friend before I can think of a reason to leave, giving away her second name. I follow her example reluctantly, but then… why not have a little fun while we're at it? – "Verena."
Pleased to see first contact securely established he leans back into this couch position that makes me and "Martina" shiver. The unpleasantness level has just been raised a notch.
"Where're ya from?"
"Spain" she replies as she crosses her legs in a way to make him gulp. I get the hint and continue on with "France" since we both figure that the truth i.e. Germany wouldn't make us too popular.
"Oh, wow, France!" he cries. "Bone jouer!"
"Ah! Tu parles francais?" I recall my middle school French. "Je suis enchantée! Tu es totalement stupide!"
"Ah… yes" he goes on a bit unsure but recovers quickly by adding: "But your English is so perfect!"
We shrug. If it wasn't like that we'd hardly be here now, right?
"Soo" Derek starts "you two study here?" stating the obvious – there's only students living in this town.
We nod.
"Oh, awesome!" (how can anyone be so hyper?) "What course?"
No hesitation here… "Computer Science" we sound unisono and most casually as we watch the bloke being hit by half a heart attack. We try not to laugh out loud and quickly lift our glasses for another sip to hide our broad grins.
"Erm, I guess I gotta go then…" Derek mumbles as he gets up.
"Oh really?" I'm faking disappointment. "We were just discussing the Cirrus sound problem on our notebooks when using Linux, and really hoped we could get some advice on that…" I can't finish my sentence as he flees into the security of his friends group and hands over what looks like twenty quid.
"Too bad" Jutta announces "we should have at least asked him to buy us a round."
"Yes!" I reply, shocked "How come we overlooked that?"
"Female multitasking capability going down as the percentage of alcohol in the blood rises?" she suggest as she empties her glass. I have to agree. However, it doesn't seem to influence our system memory: lesson learned to be applied next time!